Scars
by xginnyx11
Summary: It's hard to function completely broken. Rose struggled to get out of bed each morning. Her insecurities were weighing her down, and one day they would win. One day, Rose wouldn't get out of bed. But that day was not today.


Rose was in one of her moods again. That mood where she just felt empty and out of it. Loneliness overwhelmed her and she felt absolutely and completely worthless. She stared up at the ceiling above her four-poster bed and counted the specks on the ceiling. She wondered how many other people were doing the same thing. Surely she couldn't be the only person in the world who was counting specks on the ceiling, willing herself to want to get out of bed, to feel okay again. But it felt like she was.

Everyone had someone special in their life, whether it was a husband or wife, girlfriend or boyfriend, a best friend, a pet, something. But Rose had nobody. Hogwarts nicely reminded her of this every day when she walked around the corridors and saw all the best friends and couples wandering the halls with smiles on their faces. Rose had friends, sure. It was inevitable with the famous family she was born into. But they didn't know her. She had to wear a mask around them, a mask she wasn't allowed to take off often because it was so hard to be alone in Hogwarts. Rose was the loud, sarcastic, happy friend in their minds. She'd always have a funny story to tell or a sarcastic comment to make about any given situation. But that wasn't the real Rose. The real Rose was eating away at her and begging to come out.

The real Rose was incredibly insecure. Her parents were the famous Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, two thirds of the Golden Trio, which defeated Lord Voldemort with Harry Potter when they were still teenagers. Rose was in her last year of Hogwarts, so she was just as old as they were when they killed him. She hadn't done anything worthwhile with her life.

Rose had been a natural at Quidditch, and even played on the Gryffindor team for a few years, but she decided to quit. She wished she hadn't. She missed the feeling that she felt in the pit of her stomach when she was flying higher and higher, her hair flying out behind her and the rest of the world down below her. She felt fearless and happy. But Rose couldn't bring herself to start playing again. She had been so adamant about stopping, despite her family telling her not to. They'd given her grief about it and said she'd most likely change her mind after a few months without it. Rose couldn't let them be right, so she stopped playing.

To make matters worse, her brother, Hugo, had to be the stud of the school. He had his dorky years, sure, when he was a ginger kid with bushy hair and glasses. But that changed with puberty. His hair darkened to a nice auburn color, his acne disappeared, his hair had a nice swish to it, and he stopped wearing glasses. His voice got deep and husky, and flirting became his number one priority in life. Plus, he was famous, smart, courageous, and a million other things. The girls were all over him. Rose couldn't count the number of boyfriends she'd had and the number of girlfriends Hugo had on any amount of hands. She had never had a boyfriend, and Hugo had too many to remember.

Well, there had been Scorpius. But you couldn't count him. He was Hugo's best friend and they were exactly alike. Scorpius was talented. He had the ability to make any given girl fall in love with him, despite the fact that everyone knew he was a total player. The girls all thought they were the special one, the one he really cared about. Rose had genuinely believed this. He'd flirted with her for months on end and said cute things and made her smile. She felt happy. This was before the emptiness had started to grow inside of her. Life seemed perfect. They weren't together, but Rose didn't mind. What they had was perfect and lovely and she felt wanted. She had butterflies in her stomach when she even thought about him. She was tongue-tied around him but she loved it. She loved feeling out of control and ridiculously happy.

Then one day, it ended. Just like that. No more flirting, no more talking, nothing. He ignored her. He had a girlfriend now, and that girlfriend was not Rose. Rose was hurt, really hurt, but more than anything she felt dumb. How could she ever think that he actually liked her? She wasn't anything special. But she didn't want to let him know how sad she was without him, so she moved on, or at least attempted to. She tried to stop liking him, and sometimes it may have even worked, but then she caught him staring at her like he used to. The look that made it looked like he still cared about her.

It was a never-ending cycle. They'd go back to their flirting, he'd get a girlfriend, nothing but stares. Repeat. He never had a girlfriend for long it seemed, so Rose continued to play his game. Scorpius liked to collect girls. He toyed with several girls all at once, and took turns dating them, and then dumped them before he lost one of his girls. He never dated Rose. Rose clung to the hope that she was special, the one he really wanted. But now she knew she wasn't. In fact, she was probably the one he cared about the least.

She didn't talk to him all summer. Then when they came back for their seventh year, everything stopped. He didn't talk to her or flirt with her and the stares stopped completely. He had a girlfriend again, but when Rose saw them together, they looked really happy. She was pretty. She was long, shiny brunette hair and long legs and a nice bum and breasts to match. Rose was short, small, with long red hair that never cooperated, and an average face and body. She wasn't ugly. Just nothing special and she knew it now.

Scorpius was one of her scars. Her insecurity was one as well. Another scar of hers was the loss of Nana Weasley. It had been years now, but it still stung her eyes to even think about it. Even thinking about it made her cry. She didn't know entirely why it still hurt her so much. She had been young and naïve when it happened. But in a way, Rose felt it was her turning point in life. She learned then that not everything lasted forever. In fact, all the good things in her life were going to go away. Death happens to everyone, even the best people in the world like Nana Weasley. Those few weeks she was at St. Mungo's around Christmas time were some of the worst weeks of her entire life. Rose didn't even remember them much. She remembered the card she and Grandpa Weasley had found. It was a Muggle card and played music out of it. It made Nana smile. Rose remembered buying her a stuffed animal to remind her grandmother of her. She told her to bring it to heaven with her, but she didn't. It was next to Rose right now, as she counted the specks on her ceiling and thought about life. She could never get rid of it.

Rose remembered the last time she saw her grandmother, and she regretted it terribly. It had been great, actually. Nana Weasley had gone back to the Burrow because everyone thought she was getting better. Rose climbed into bed with her and told her Grandmother stories and jokes and snuggled. Then she gave her a nice big hug and left. A few days later, she was gone forever. Hugo and Rose had just returned from a Quidditch game and their parents sat them on the couch and told them Nana Weasley was gone. Rose burrowed her head in the pillow of the couch and started to cry. Hugo didn't cry. He cried later, by himself. Hugo was the strong one, the rock. Rose's rock. Rose wiped the tears away from her eyes and looked back up at the ceiling. It was making her sad to think about Nana, especially when she knew Grandpa Weasley didn't have much time life either. She didn't know if she could handle it the second time around. She was not strong enough.

Rose's fourth scar was her fear of losing everyone and everything around her. Everyone seemed to get bored of her and toss her in the trash eventually. She'd gone through so many different friends when she was younger. The reasons their friendships had ended had been dumb reasons, obviously, but it didn't change the fact that they left her. That's why she had to wear a mask around her current group of friends. She liked them, and they could make her truly happy sometimes, but she didn't want them to know what she was really like; worthless, insecure, lonely, awkward, shy, confused, broken.

She felt like she was disconnected and broken into pieces. Rose was missing one piece, so she remained broken. It's hard to function completely broken. Rose struggled to get out of bed each morning. Her insecurities were weighing her down, and one day they would win. One day, Rose wouldn't get out of bed.

But that day was not today, Rose realized, and flung herself out of her bed. She had several other scars too, she was sure, but today, she was going to ignore them. Rose forced herself to remember the good things in her life. People remember pain because it leaves scars, and happy things do not. Happy memories are deep inside your heart, because they must be protected. Scars stay on the outside, slowly fading away, but happiness stays forever. You just have to know it's there.

Rose strode over to the mirror and smiled at her reflection. She wasn't perfect or beautiful in anyway, but she was alive and healthy. She had a roof over her head, clothes to wear, food to eat, a wonderful school to go to, and a wonderful life ahead of her. She wasn't going to be alone forever. In fact, now that Rose thought about it, she wasn't alone in the slightest. She had friends. She even had a best friend, named Hannah, who went to Beauxbaton's in France. Distance was annoying, but their friendship could handle it. Whenever she talked to Hannah, it was like no time had passed at all. They owled frequently and talked on Muggle computers. They were going to meet soon, when they finished up school, and Rose was excited. Hannah knew the real her, and loved her regardless. Hannah was one of the best things in her life.

Not to mention her great family. She had a loving mother, father, and brother. Her cousins were entertaining and obnoxious, but understanding and loving too. Family is one thing that never goes away, can never go away. Rose thought before that Nana Weasley's death had shown her that everything good goes away eventually. But it doesn't. Rose still remembered Nana Weasley, and so do loads of other people. Even when someone is dead, they remain in people's hearts, because they still love them. Rose didn't believe that love ever stopped either. You either didn't love them at all or you love them forever. That's how it goes.

Rose would love Nana Weasley forever, as would her entire family. This is why Rose had to keep fighting against the monsters inside of her and get out of bed each morning, she realized. So she could meet Hannah, so she could graduate, so she could get her first job, so she could get married and have kids, so she could watch the rain drip down her window, so she could make snow angels, so she could do a million and one things. But most importantly, she had to live so she could die.

Rose knew she was not going to die for a while. The monsters were not able to reach her yet. But when they did, Rose was going to be ready. Rose would never get defeated by them. Because when she did die, people were still going to love her. People were always going to love her. It was up to her to make that number of people larger and larger and she would. Because Rose was not the only person counting specks on her ceiling. There were millions of people in this world doing the same thing and who have done it before. Nobody is unique in that way, Rose realized. The things that really and truly make people special are their combination of scars and the happiness in their heart. Nobody is the same in that aspect and nobody has the same exact people loving them.

Rose made it her job to ensure that the happiness always outweighs her scars. Starting today.


End file.
